Publications

WTO must ban harmful fisheries subsidiesSustainably managed wild fisheries sup-port food and nutritional security, livelihoods, and cultures (1).Harmful fisheries subsidies-government payments that incentivize overcapacity and lead to over-fishing-undermine these benefits yet are increasing globally (2).World Trade Organization (WTO) members have a unique opportunity at their ministerial meeting in November to reach an agreement that eliminates harmful subsidies (3).We-a group of scientists spanning 46 countries and 6 continents-urge the WTO to make this commitment.To curb overfishing, biodiversity degradation and loss, and CO2 emissions, and to safeguard food and livelihoods, WTO members must prohibit fisheries subsidies that cause harm, such as those that lower the cost of fuel and vessel construction and those that provide price support to keep market prices artificially high (2).Subsidies to distant-water fishing fleets must be eliminated to prevent overfishing on the high seas and in waters under national jurisdiction.Such subsidies threaten low-income countries that rely on fish for food sovereignty (4, 5).Exceptions to the rulesknown as special and differential treatment-should be considered for small-scale fishers that use low-impact gears or that fish for subsistence, but only if decoupled from incentivizing overfishing ( 6).An effective agreement must eliminate subsidies for fuel (7), distant-water and destructive fishing fleets (4, 5), and illegal and unregulated vessels in line with the aims of Sustainable Development Goal 14.6 (8).To ensure accountability, it should also support low-income countries' efforts to meet their commitments and transition to sustainable management.Finally, the agreement should require transparent data documentation and enforcement measures (9).We call on the heads of state of the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, and the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement-who have already committed to eliminating harmful subsidies (10-12)-as well as other trade blocs and individual countries, to declare their support now for an agreement that enshrines these recommendations.WTO members must harness their politi-cal mandate to protect the health of the ocean and the well-being of society.

Additional file 3. Gundog.Peaks() (.R file).

Eutrophication is a widespread phenomenon that disrupts natural ecosystems around the globe. Despite the general recognition that ecosystems provide many services and benefits to humans, little effort has been made to address how increasing anthropogenic eutrophication affects those services. We conducted a field experiment to determine the effect of nutrient enrichment on five ecological services provided by a model coastal system, a shallow seagrass community near Mobile Bay, Alabama (USA): (1) the provision of shelter for fauna; (2) the quality of food provided to first-order consumers; (3) quantity of food provision to first-order consumers and O2/CO2 exchange; (4) producer carbon and nitrogen storage, and (5) water clarity. The results showed a severe negative impact on seagrass density and biomass, which greatly reduced the structural complexity of the community and provision of shelter to fauna. Water clarity and the standing stock of producer carbon were reduced in the fertilized area in comparison with the control area. In contrast, nutrient addition did not affect in any consistent way the total quantity of food available for first-order consumers, the net exchange of O2/CO2, or the standing stock of producer nitrogen in the community. The nutritional quality of the food available for first-order consumers increased with fertilization. These results show that the impacts of nutrient enrichment on the services provided by natural systems may be disparate, ranging from negative to positive. These findings suggest that management policies for anthropogenic eutrophication will depend on the specific ecosystem service targeted. In the case of shallow seagrass beds, the loss of biogenic habitat and drastic impacts on commercially important fauna may be sufficiently alarming to warrant rigorous control of coastal eutrophication.

Abstract Current marine research primarily depends on weighty and invasive sensory equipment and telemetric network to understand the marine environment, including the diverse fauna it contains, as a function of animal behavior and size, as well as equipment longevity. To match animal morphology and activity within the surrounding marine environment, here we show a physically flexible and stretchable skin-like and waterproof autonomous multifunctional system, integrating Bluetooth, memory chip, and high performance physical sensors. The sensory tag is mounted on a swimming crab ( Portunus pelagicus ) and is capable of continuous logging of depth, temperature, and salinity within the harsh ocean environment. The fully packaged, ultra-lightweight (<2.4 g in water), and compliant “Marine Skin” system does not have any wired connection enabling safe and weightless cutting-edge approach to monitor and assess marine life and the ecosystem’s health to support conservation and management of marine ecosystems.

Abstract The gray mangrove [Avicennia marina (Forsk.) Vierh.] is the most widely distributed mangrove species, ranging throughout the Indo-West Pacific. It presents remarkable levels of geographic variation both in phenotypic traits and habitat, often occupying extreme environments at the edges of its distribution. However, subspecific evolutionary relationships and adaptive mechanisms remain understudied, especially across populations of the West Indian Ocean. High-quality genomic resources accounting for such variability are also sparse. Here we report the first chromosome-level assembly of the genome of A. marina. We used a previously release draft assembly and proximity ligation libraries Chicago and Dovetail HiC for scaffolding, producing a 456,526,188-bp long genome. The largest 32 scaffolds (22.4–10.5 Mb) accounted for 98% of the genome assembly, with the remaining 2% distributed among much shorter 3,759 scaffolds (62.4–1 kb). We annotated 45,032 protein-coding genes using tissue-specific RNA-seq data in combination with de novo gene prediction, from which 34,442 were associated to GO terms. Genome assembly and annotated set of genes yield a 96.7% and 95.1% completeness score, respectively, when compared with the eudicots BUSCO dataset. Furthermore, an FST survey based on resequencing data successfully identified a set of candidate genes potentially involved in local adaptation and revealed patterns of adaptive variability correlating with a temperature gradient in Arabian mangrove populations. Our A. marina genomic assembly provides a highly valuable resource for genome evolution analysis, as well as for identifying functional genes involved in adaptive processes and speciation.

Seagrass meadows play a key role in the global carbon cycle through storing carbon in their biomass and soils. However, the lack of global assessments of carbon stocks in seagrass biomass and net primary production (NPP) limits our understanding of their role in the carbon cycle. Here, we provide global estimates of biomass carbon stocks and NPP encompassing seagrasses with different life-history strategies, across bioregions and 66 countries. Seagrass meadows show up to 800-fold differences in biomass across different life-history strategies and bioregions (mean ± SE; 1551 ± 40 kg C ha^-1), whereas seagrass NPP (5833 ± 557 kg C ha^-1 yr^-1) ranks among the highest within photosynthetic ecosystems. We estimate seagrass biomass carbon stocks at 24-40 Tg C and NPP at 83-137 Tg C yr^-1 within 160,387 to 266,500 km² of global seagrass extent. This study showcases the role of seagrasses in the global carbon cycle and provides the basis for their inclusion in carbon crediting schemes towards implementing conservation actions for climate change mitigation.